Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Winner 2009

[Ripley]

"Jose Luis Rodriguez captured the imaginations of the judges with a picture that he had planned for years, and even sketched out on a piece of paper. I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting - or predation - but without blood," he told BBC News. "I didn't want a cruel image." With a great deal of patience and careful observation of the wolves' movements, he succeeded in taking the award-winning photograph.

Mr Rodriguez used a custom-built infrared trap to snap the wolf as it leapt into the air.

The WPY competition, now in its 45th year, is owned by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum.

The panel of judges looked through more than 43,000 entries to this year's competition.

This is the fifth year that wildlife photographer Mark Carwardine has been on the judging panel. He said of the winning photo: "It's captured thousands of years of human-wolf interaction in just one moment."

Hasselblad 503CW with a 6x6 Fujichrome backing + Planar 80mm lens; 1/30 sec at f11; ISO 50; purpose-made Ficap infrared camera trap

It was taken on film and I think it was taken with a remote trigger device like last year's winning shot, which caused a lot of debate as the photographer wasn't there when it was taken, instead the wild snow leopard tripped the cable and was bombarded with several DSLRs and flashes going off around him.

Other stunning images that won different categories here

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/tem...roup.do?group=1

My favourite is this image, "Puffin in the snow" but mostly because they are my favourite bird.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/tem...y=7&group=1

Edited October 24, 2009 by Ripley

[Ripley]

Here are a few more winners

Winner - Urban Wildlife

"One of the most extraordinary pictures at the exhibition is a picture showing a cat squaring up to a fox three times her size. It belongs to Russian photographer Igor Shpilenok who took her with him on a four-month trip deep into an icy nature reserve.

'If you spend four months in a cabin you need some company so I took my cat Ryska with me to talk to,' he told MailOnline.

'It's funny because she is so shy in the city, but when I was out there she would stand up to foxes, wolverines and even bears!

'She was brave because she knew I was standing behind her. Once a bear tried to swipe at her and she rushed up to me and climbed onto my shoulder.'

Winner - Underwater

"Doug was on Golden Gate Bank off the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico, to photograph striped marlin feeding on shoaling sardines. Hunting cooperatively, the marlin herded the fish into baitballs and up towards the surface. When the marlin suddenly made a sharp exit, Doug had an ominous feeling that something was up.

And that ‘something’ was a 10-metre (33-foot) ‘high-speed missile blasting through the baitball’: a Bryde’s whale.

‘Just before reaching the sardines,’ Doug says, ‘the whale opened its jaws impossibly wide and the throat pleats expanded to take in water and fish.’

And nearly Doug, too: he narrowly missed the open mouth, bouncing off the whale’s lower lip and the side of the throat pleats. The huge gulp complete, the whale’s jaws closed and the accordion-like pleats forced the water out through the baleen hanging from the upper jaw, trapping the sardines on the inside. Taking no notice of the human presence, the whale repeated its transformation from torpedo to big-mouth enough times for Doug to capture the action.

Canon EOS 40D + Tokina 10-17mm lens at 10mm; 1/640 sec at f5.6; ISO 640; Subal C40 housing.

Edited October 24, 2009 by Ripley

[kja]

Doug Perrine ROCKS - both as a photographer and as a person. A nicer guy you will not meet!

[Ripley]

I absolutely love this photo.

Killer in the Mist by Stefano Unterthiner

"Animals in their Environment - Highly Commended"

"The picture was taken in a torrential rainstorm on Possession Island in the sub-Antarctic Crozet Archipelago. A killer whale family was hunting king penguins and southern elephant seals just off a nearby beach. ‘Over four months, this was the first time,’ says Stefano, ‘that I saw killer whales so close to shore or to the king penguin rookery.’ The penguins were in a terrible panic, he says. ‘The drama was intense, what with the enormous male, its dorsal fin slicing through the grey water, and the simply terrible weather.’

Stefano spotted the killer whales from the cliff overlooking the beach and then spent more than three hours photographing them in whipping rain. ‘It’s one of the most unforgettable moments of my life.’

Nikon D2X + Nikon 70-200mm lens; 1/500 sec at f7.1; ISO 250.

"One Earth Award - Stalking the tiger by Andy Rouse

Andy and his guide Dicky Singh followed the fresh pug marks down the track. When they caught up with the tiger, they discovered it was Machali, a female very familiar to Dicky. Indeed, she’s something of a local celebrity in Ranthambore National Park. It wasn’t long before jeep-loads of tourists drew up to admire her. The drivers kept a respectful distance, but Machali is well used to such attention from the wildlife paparazzi. It has been suggested that Machali has contributed about $10 million to the local economy.

Andy believes that ‘if we are to save this wonderful cat, then it has to have an economic value to a local community, and that’s what I wanted to show with this picture.’

Nikon D3 + Nikon 70-200mm lens; 1/250 sec at f5.6; ISO 800.

[Ripley]

Doug Perrine ROCKS - both as a photographer and as a person. A nicer guy you will not meet!

Thought you might like that one, kja. He almost ended up like Johah in the whale it sounds!